Even those of us who roll our eyes at the mention of FoxNews have to admit that the right-wing news organization is especially good at using the nuances of language to convey a particular worldview—a fiction—subtly and effectively. Most news organizations have a style guide that dictates how to spell, punctuate, and format their articles. For example, at FoxNews the word “bologna” refers to a popular sandwich meat. It shows up in headlines such as “Man Attacked in Oklahoma City for Bologna Sandwich, Police Say” and “Mass. police arrested man after finding kilo of cocaine inside a chunk of bologna.” But there is a related word—a word that means roughly the same as hogwash, balderdash, and hooey. FoxNews spells that word “baloney,” as in the headlines “World Health Baloney” and “Antibiotic Link is Cancer Baloney.” So it appears the rule at FoxNews is to spell the meat “bologna” and the hogwash “baloney.”

And yet how do they spell it when they’re transcribing a public figure’s speech? If the public figure is one-time Republican presidential nominee John McCain, hogwash is spelled “baloney” in the usual way. If it’s Republican senator John Kyl, hogwash is also spelled “baloney.” But if the word appears in connection with liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, whose weight has been a subject of discussion at FoxNews—one article highlights the accusation that he’s a “fat pig,” just like the animal that gives us bologna—then FoxNews breaks its own rule and spells hogwash “bologna.”

Clever girl.

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